


Aftermath

by CorvidFeathers



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Battlefields, Civil War AU, First Battle of Bull Run, Friendship, Gen, Gore, Hurt/Comfort, Manassas, TW: Racial Slurs, TW: Racism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-15
Updated: 2013-09-03
Packaged: 2017-12-23 13:37:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/927090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CorvidFeathers/pseuds/CorvidFeathers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Abolition/Civil War AU<br/>After the first battle of Manassas, Enjolras has a letter to write and Gavroche encounters an old acquaintance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Set in the Aboliton/Civil War Les Mis AU I have been working on, and in the same universe as my longer fic, The Magnetism of Providence.  
> There is mentions of racism in this story but it doesn't have any of the characters holding racist views.  
> There is also mentions of squicky gore things from the aftermath of a battle.

Dears Mr. and Mrs. Bahorel,

Lieutenant Antoine Enjolras paused, staring down at the spiky letters he had scrawled across the page. They were nearly illegible. For a brief instant he considered going to Combeferre, asking him to take on this duty, but the impulse was gone as soon as it came. How could he ask Combeferre to bear more than he already had? His friend was resilient, but the past few days had been a strain upon everyone. None of them had been ready, as much as he was loathe to admit it, and even now his hands wouldn’t stop trembling.

He paused, and took a breath, forcing his eyes out to something else. The fragment of landscape he could see through the flap of the tent provided no rest for his eyes- it consisted of more tents, and the endless parade of wounded. The hasty retreat from Manasas had left the ranks in a disarray, but what hope he had clung to was gone now. The dead and missing had been tallied and this was just the first of many letters he had to write.

It was the hardest.

Everything was exactly as Bahorel would have wanted, he reminded himself. He was- had been- a fighting man, and he’d often expressed his wish to die that way. But he also was- had been- an Ami, an abolitionist, a man of principles who believed in fighting for the liberties of those who had none, fighting for the rights of families to put food on their tables and the rights of woman to support those families and the rights of everyone to be free. That was the cause Bahorel wanted to die fighting for.

Not in this useless chaos, not in an army so mired in confusion, not in a fight that no one could define the purpose of.

Enjolras crumpled the letter in his hand.

* * *

The stench from the battlefield hit Gavroche first, blow into his face by the wind. He pushed away the urge to gag, soldiering on through the sparse shrubbery. Along the road there had been the wreckage of a few fine coaches, ridden to the battlefield by the wealthy upper-class men who had wanted to impress their lady friends with a crushing Union victory, and then abandoned in the chaos following the Union defeat. Some of them still had the remains of the lunches that had been picked in them, and Gavroche had found a few apples and some bread that was still edible. 

No, the road to Manassas hadn’t been bad at all. He’d tried to ignore the ragged, stinking bundles of blue cloth that lay beside the road, throwing them respectful looks before continuing on his way. He’d even found treasure on the road- a pistol, which upon further inspection he found to be missing its hammer, and a brooch inlaid with silver, ripped off the dress of some fleeing lady. 

But now as he approached the battlefield itself his nerves quailed. He drew himself up, reminding himself of the taunts he would endure if he, Gavroche, backed down from such easy pickings, and reminded himself that his too little ones needed to be fed. Picking in the city were slim, with all the young men upped and gone off to fight, and the tension in the air made you twice as likely to get a beating if you were caught.

He’d heard a few ruffians and gutter-crawlers muttering about the battle, about the easy pickings that were to be had after the boys in blue had turned tail and ran back to the safety of the capital. He’d thought, if those wastrals could pick over a few corpses, it couldn’t be too hard. Easier even than stealing from a drunk man. 

The idea that the act was sacrilegious didn’t cross his mind. Dead men didn’t need coats or coins or bread- sure, honor the fallen, but keeping yourself alive was more important. 

Keeping himself and his little ones alive was more important than any foul sights or superstitions. 

It could not be any worse than the slave pens.

It could not be any worse than the slave pens.

He repeated this to himself again, and felt the logic was sound. He’d seen the worst of the country, and all the other various levels of grime and deprevation.

Gavroche continued along his path, taking a hint from the birds and starting up a warbling whistle.

* * *

The silence was what woke him.

When he had thought his life ended the world had been nothing but noise. Prouvaire had been screaming, pulling on his arm, and he’d heard Enjolras’s shouted commands, the roar of canons drowning out everything but the raw desperation of their words. A cacophony of other voices accompanied the cannonfire, screams and sobs and shouting. The steady crack of rifles had punctuated those cries, and sometimes silenced them.

Now there was nothing.

He only had time to contemplate that for a moment before the pain hit him. It seemed as if someone had shoved a hot poker between his ribs and tried to pry him apart. 

Chasing on the heels of the pain was confusion. He wasn’t supposed to be alive. He’d been absolutely convinced that he would die, and could only remember being vaguely disappointed. It wasn’t the end he’d hoped for, but at least he’d gone out fighting. Now he was… alive.

This thought spurred him into action, giving him enough strength to grit his teeth and force his eyes open. He certainly wasn’t going to lie there and die, not now that he had another chance to fight. That would be pathetic.

Light cut through his senses, sending a flash of pain through his head, but he refused to close his eyes. Slowly his vision focused. He was staring at grass, flattened into the mud by hundreds of boots. There was an object lying by his head, and with a flicker of horror he realized it was a hand, already bloating with decay. He jerked back, trying to push himself up with the arms he realized were still intact.

This effort made pain shoot through his whole body, radiating from that same point on his left side. Spots danced before his eyes and it was all he could do not to cry out. He rested his head in his hands, and when the feeling faded he looked up at his surroundings.

He was sitting next to an abandoned canon. It sagged on its gun carriage, ruined by an explosion, and cracks had split it down its sides. The cannon had been the death of the soldiers that lay near it, killed by fragments of the exploding gun carriage, but had sheltered him where he had fallen from the deadly barrages of bullets that had pitted the corpses that lay on either side of him. 

It was by a mere twist of fortune that he had been the one to survive.

The battlefield was quiet, the cries of the wounded and the crack of rifles faded to the murmurs of the wind in the trees and the nervous twitter of the birds. It felt unnatural, out of place and wrong. It brought him to a standstill, where he sat leaning against the carcass of the cannon. 

Spread out before him where the twisted remains of countless men. Pieces, fragments of what had been men splattered the grass and the trees, limbs and torn faces. The trampled grass was stained rusty red, and the stench of decay choked the air. Hands were splayed out, clawing the earth in pain or desperation before their owners had succumbed to their injuries, clouded eyes staring aimlessly into the distance. He knew there must be familiar faces among the dead, but so many of their features were already unrecognizable, and he couldn’t force himself to focus, to give them more than a glance.

A cold, choking feeling had crept into his chest, smothering the sparks of defiance that had been rekindled there. 

Bahorel had not been afraid before. He could remember the humorless tune of the bullets whistling by, remember laughing at them as he loaded and returned fire. Prouvaire had been there beside him, so close that their shoulders had been touching, looking wan and pale but laughing back with just as much fire in his eyes. Then there had been a hollow thud, an impact, and agony had drowned out his senses for a moment. Yet still he laughed, returning shot for shot as blood began to soak through his uniform. 

A cannonball had broken the ranks just a few feet away from Prouvaire, and Enjolras shouted something and the ranks were crumbling, Prouvaire tugging on his arm and screaming for him to move. But his legs hadn’t worked and the darkness had begun to crowd into his vision, the sickening pain blocking out all else as he reloaded again and raised his rifle to shoot. The hand on his arm had slipped away, pushed back by the tide of fleeing men, and for a moment he had stood alone in defiance before his legs had given out completely.

Then not even a flicker of fear had dared the raise its head, so why was he paralyzed now?

It was not the pain. It hurt, everything hurt, sharp pain when he moved, dull aching when he breathed, and a sickening throbbing in his head that sharpened with every beam of light. But it was no worse than the aftermath of going toe to toe with a bull, or Grantaire- those two experiences had been remarkably similar. Pain was nothing more than a reminder that he was still alive.

The dull eyes of the corpses stared hollowly at him, and in his fevered mind it was all too easy to succumb to his imagination and see their outstretched fingers clawing towards him, reclaiming him for their ranks. 

He shook his head, forcing himself to laugh. Bahorel did not sit and shudder at images conjured by his mind. Such imaginings were best left to Prouvaire, who delighted in them. He would share this one with him, as soon as he found him… 

The notion that Prouvaire lay with the ranks of the fallen on the field crossed his mind, but he laughed it off. It was too much of an ignoble, anonymous death to satisfy Prouvaire, and he would not bow to it any more than Bahorel would. 

* * *

The first thing Gavroche encountered once he stepped on the battlefield was a small metal flask. He picked it up and stuffed it in his pocket, figuring he could get a few pennies for it. Then he’d spotted a scatter of coins, and knelt to gather them up, crawling across the grass until his hand met something wet and slimy and he’d looked up to meet the decaying eyes of a blue-uniformed corpse. Without a pause he’d plucked the remaining coins out of the grass and given the corpse a cocky grin and a little salute before continuing on his way. But now has he ventured further into the field his shoulders slumped and his cheerful whistle died off as he surveyed the carnage.

He’d never seen so much blood in his life, not even when a slave was lashed. Not even in the aftermath of one of Montparnasse’s particularly difficult hunts. He’d seen people half rotted away in the back alleys of all manner of towns, and picked them over for coins like any self-respecting street urchin, but never had he seen someone… gone all to bits like that. 

The stench was overwhelming now, iron and rot invading his nostrils and settling on his tongue.

He swallowed and forged onward.

The broken pistol creaked under the pressure of his fingers as he picked his way through the battlefield. His foot came down on something… squishy, and for a few steps he trailed bloody footprints across the grass.

Silence on the battlefield was broken only by the calls of the crows that circled overhead, swooping down to peck at some choice morsel. Like Gavroche they were drawn by the shiny objects strewn across the field, and he shooed one off to take the pocketwatch it had been pecking at. The crow cawed indignantly and alighted a few steps away on the chest of gray-uniformed soldier. Gavroche stared for a moment as it began to peck at his face, and then hurried on.

His movements quickly fell into a rhythm, and the horror of the scene faded. For a few minutes he could almost forget the stench of death (no worse than the alley behind the hospital) and the gruesome nature of his task. The call of the crows faded into the background, becoming no more obtrusive than the crooning of the pigeons in the city.

Then a new sounds split through this peace, and he spun around, eyes widening. The sound was rasping and painful, and it took him a moment to realize it was laughter.

He crept closer to the sound, climbing up the stock of a half-shattered cannon to peer over it. At first he just saw more corpses, with bloated bodies and tattered uniforms. Then he realized that the man below him was the one laughing, and had color in his cheeks and light in his eyes that didn’t stay after death. He was a brute of a man, with broad shoulders and arms as thick as logs, but his eyes were staring out into nothing. Blood had soaked through the side of his uniform.

Gavroche leaned forward to try to see his face, and his hands slipped on the cracked metal of the cannon. In the struggle to get a handhold again the broken pistol slipped from his hand and fell down next to the man.

The man turned his head and looked up at Gavroche. His face was dominated by dark eyebrows and a nose that had been broken many times over, with a broad mouth that looked suited to nothing but grinning. His features were vaguely familiar, but Gavroche shook the feeling away. He’d seen plenty of young men around the streets of Washington, and this one could have been any one of them.

The man stared at him for a moment, then the light of recognition dawned in his eyes. “What are you doing here?” 

Gavroche settled himself crosslegged on the coffin. “Better to steal from the dead than from the living,” he said cheerfully. 

The man’s eyes narrowed. “They could shoot you for that,” he said flatly.

“Isn’t no one here to see, save you, and you’re good as dead,” Gavroche said. “Can’t see you going far to stop me.”

The man laughed, and though the sound held more bitterness than mirth it spurred Gavroche’s memory.

“You’re that man who started the riot!” Gavroche blurted, grinning at the memory. “I earned a pretty penny there, though seeing Montparnasse and my bloodline driven to such a rage was worth even more.” He hopped down from the cannon. “I’d give thanks again for your offer of a ride, but I got myself out in the end.” He wrinkled his nose. “Never did persuade my sisters.”

It took a moment for recognition to dawn in the man’s eyes. “Ah, the slaver’s brat,” he said. “How’d you get up here?”

“Slipped out of my father’s grasp and struck out on my own. Figured Washington was as a good a place as any to make an honest living,” he said with a little grin. “Of course not much of an honest living to be made by the likes of me.” Searching for work would likely only get him caught by some keen slavecatcher who found it easier to cage every negro he could get his hands on and worry about the proper paperwork later. With the start of the war, things were different, but Gavroche’s situation was little better.

The man spat into the grass. “Washington,” he muttered in disgust. “Full of nothing but politicians who care greatly for lining their pockets and little for upholding the tenants under which their country was built.” The movement made the man wince, his hand going to his side. “Started this damn fight for… for…” He trailed off, fingers tightening on his side. 

“Some say the good old ape’ll free the slaves!” Gavroche piped up, remembering this tidbit from an overheard conversation.

The man shook his head, his mouth twisting into a grimace. “Honest Abe will do all he can to reunite the North with its treacherous sister, even defile liberty by letting slavery be. It’ll creep out and take its hold out west, and then…” His words trailed off again. “Damn.”

“Why’re you fighting then?” Gavroche asked, staring up at the man. He remembered his strength as he’d broken the bars and chains of the slave pens, treading quietly and muttering instructions to the men and women who had been prisoners, and then the raw fury he’d unleashed on the crowd to save his golden-haired compatriot. Now he was strangely reduced, his skin pale and his hands trembling.

“Because if there’s a damn chance that it will take this nation a step closer to embracing liberty then I’d take up arms in an instant,” the man growled.


	2. Chapter 2

For a minute the kid appeared lost in thought. He couldn’t have been more than nine or ten- it was hard to tell beneath his large, ragged clothes. He was thinner than he remembered, his shoulder bones poking out from beneath his ripped sleeves. Bahorel has taken a liking to him before at his daring at confronting the strangers preparing to cause trouble. That air of cockiness was still present, but beneath the smears of grime his face was pale.

Bahorel cursed the society the drove children out to thieve on battlefields. At that age children should be home, learning how to care for the animals and spending their days out in the field of their farms, or picking fights in the city streets, not scrounging for pennies in the bloodsoaked earth.

“What do you mean, embrace liberty?” the kid asked, breaking Bahorel from his thoughts.

Bahorel shifted, turning to brace his hands against the side of the cannon in an effort to stand. “To have the spine to stand for the principles on which this nation was, in theory, based,” he said through gritted teeth. “More importantly, to give every man and woman what is theirs by right.” He managed to get on his feet, and stood shakily, still leaning on the cannon. The child stared up at him, worry reflected in his features. 

Bahorel tried to take a step away from the cannon, but pain shot through his abdomen accompanied by dizziness. He stumbled. A hand caught his arm as he fell to his knees, and when his vision cleared the child’s anxious face was staring at him. His gesture was ineffectual, but… touching. Bahorel gave him a smile as he made another attempt to stand.

His legs gave out and he was once more forced to his knees, his head hanging down as dizziness threatened to topple him completely. A small hand touched his arm once again, and when he looked up the kid hesitated before taking a flask from his jacket and pressing it into Bahorel’s hand. “Here. Dunno what’s in it, but it’s fancy so it must be strong.”

The flask was battered, but had an ornate design painted on the front. The kid must have scrounged it from a body. Bahorel didn’t examine it too carefully before uncorking it and tasting the contents. It seared his tongue pleasantly. Brandy. He swallowed it down quickly and handed the flask back to the kid, who tucked it back into his jacket.

“Thank you,” he said, pushing himself to his feet again. The alcohol had fortified him and chased away the worst of the dizziness and numbed the pain enough to allow him to take a few steps. He glanced back at the kid, who had stood up and was picking over the corpses around the cannon. 

“Kid,” Bahorel said. The child looked up, meeting Bahorel’s gaze head on. 

“You can’t stop me,” he said defiantly.

Bahorel laughed. “You’d do best not the test me. But I have a job for you, one that will pay better than whatever pittance you’d collect from those poor fools.”

The kid eyed him suspiciously. “You’re in no position to pay me,” he said. “Your word ain’t worth anything if you kick it.”

Bahorel grinned. “Needn’t fear that if you know anything about me. Takes more than a Reb’s bullet to stop me.” The pain was still excruciating, but he’d had his fair share of practice at shaking pain off, and he was steady on his feet. “It’s a worthwhile gamble.”

The kid shot a look at the corpse at his feet, then jammed his hands into his pockets and stepped carefully over it to Bahorel. “What’s this job you’re talking about?” he demanded.

Bahorel took a careful breath before answering. “First of all, do you know where the Union is now?”

Gavroche answered this with a laugh. “They ran all the way back to Washington.”

Bahorel had feared as much. If his luck held a detachment would have already been sent back to retrieve the wounded and the dead, and he would only have to find them. He did not relish the idea of the trek back to Washington by himself. “My task for you is to walk back with me to the edge of the battlefield. You’re quicker than me on your feet at present.” He forced a laugh. “Look among the dead for a… a boy. He’s eighteen, pale, with freckles and long… long brown hair.” Unfashionably long hair. It varied from season to season whether Jehan was imitating the Romantic poets or the fashion of the French or American Revolutions, but it always drove Courfeyrac to distraction. “He had it tied back with a red ribbon.” A ribbon he’d stolen from Musichetta, as prize for a wager they had made over Joly. She had protested, and he, laughingly, had fallen to his knees and made declarations over how she would not allow him this token of humanity when he was off to face the apocalypse. 

“Friend of yours?” the kid’s voice broke into his thoughts. He nodded tersely. The kid regarded him for a moment before nodding back. “Easy enough,” he said, straightening his jacket. “You’ll pay me more than I would’ve collected here? Swear it?” 

“I swear it,” Bahorel said with a little laugh.

“On what?” the kid demanded.

This gave Bahorel pause for a moment. “On liberty,” he said. The boy considered this for a moment and then nodded.

“What’s your name, kid?” Bahorel asked.

“Gavroche.”

“Mine’s Bahorel.”

***

It was a long trek across the battlefield, made longer by Bahorel’s flagging strength. He tried to hide it with cheery words and friendly taunts to Gavroche, but Gavroche had rolled enough drunks to know what a man trying to cover unsteadiness looked like. 

He scampered over the battlefield, examining the corpses while keeping an eye out for Bahorel. There were plenty of men fitting the description of Bahorel’s friend, but none with their hair tied back in the way he had mentioned. There were somebodies too ravaged by shrapnel and shot too get even an idea of what they had looked like, and some bits of people that didn’t even look human anymore, but Gavroche didn’t mention this to Bahorel, instead exclaiming negatives across the battlefield. 

At last a large canvas tent came into view. It was bustling with men in blue uniforms. They were carrying the last few stretchers into the tent and piling bodies onto carts. As they drew within earshot the silence of the battlefield was interrupted by a long scream and accompanying cries emanating from the tent. 

Gavroche jumped and drew closer to Bahorel. 

Bahorel’s pace quickened as they drew nearer to the tent, and Gavroche had to trot to keep up with him. What was he doing? He was a thief, with no place poking around among so many soldiers. He’d end up strung up, and his little charges starving. He should get his payment while he could and take off.

He didn’t say anything, still sticking close to Bahorel.

Nearby a cluster of soldiers were loading corpses onto a cart, working their way out through the battlefield. One of these men, a grizzled old veteran, was the first to spot Bahorel and Gavroche. He called out to them, waving.

The man standing next to him, a dusky-haired young soldier, looking up from the corpse he had just set into the cart, and in a second his expression turned from weariness to pure joy.

“BAHOREL!” the shout startled Gavroche as the young men sprinted towards them, flinging himself into Bahorel’s arms. 

Bahorel stumbled under the sudden weight and almost fell backwards, which made the young soldier withdrew instantly, his eyes shining with concern. But Bahorel pulled him back into an embrace for a moment longer, before drawing back to look over the young man. Gavroche watched curiously. The young man had long hair that was tied back with a ribbon that might have once been red and freckled face that was smeared with gore.

“Jehan,” Gavroche heard Bahorel say.

Jehan blinked up at Bahorel, looking at a loss. “I… I… thought the catastrophe had swallowed you up,” he said in a very small voice.

Bahorel laughed. “Swallowed me and spat me right back out,” he said, clapping Jehan’s shoulder. “And with a companion.” He gestured at Gavroche, who drew himself up and tugged on the edges of his jacket.

Jehan looked at him and his expression broke a little. “Wherever… wherever did you find a child on a battlefield?” he asked quietly.

“It doesn’t matter,” Bahorel said, taking Gavroche’s shoulder and bringing him up beside him. Gavroche didn’t protest, and the three of them walked back towards the tent together, Jehan reaching out to support Bahorel when Bahorel could stand no longer.

***

Bahorel woke.

He could hear the clamor and bustle of the hospital around him. There were faint cries, muffled by layers of wood and plaster, but the immediate noises were quiet and normal. Coughs and slight moans, the sound of footsteps across the floor, and the clipped voices of the doctors and softer voices of the nurses as they made their rounds. With his eyes closed, he could pretend for a moment that he was in the hospital back in New York, as opposed to whatever shack the army had set up in.

Flinching from reality had never been a trait of Bahorel’s, and he opened his. He was in a narrow cot, surrounded by other identical cots bearing wounded men. Women in uniforms patrolled the walkways, stopping by patient’s beds to answer an inquiry or perform a task.

The roof overhead was wood and not the canvas of a tent, and went he turned his head he could see a window at the far side of the room, looking out onto buildings. He let a quiet breath escape him. He was away from Manassas.

“You awake?” a tired voice said from beside him.

Bahorel turned his head to see Gavroche sitting on the floor beside his cot. He was holding a pocketknife and a dry hunk of bread, picking away pieces of the bread with the knife and eating them. “The nervous one told me to fetch him when you were awake.” He shuddered. “Can you put off being awake until I can slip away? I don’t fancy going down to those rooms again, all those quacks and their sets of knives… You get the feeling they’re ready to carve you up for dinner.”

Bahorel laughed. “You needn’t fetch Joly away from his work, I feel fine.” He stretched experimentally, and all the aches and pains he had accumulated in his body complained, but the twinge from his side was muted in comparison to what it had been before. He could vaguely recall waking several times before, in agonizing pain, and being drowned back into sleep with laudanum.

He glanced over at the boy. “I don’t think I have any money with me now, but-“

Gavroche cut him off with an imperious wave of his hand, as he stood and hopped up to sit in the edge of the bed. “That Prouvaire fellow paid me, twice over,” he said. “He found me when the doctors were fiddling with you.” He stretched, tucking the knife into his belt and biting in the bread.

Bahorel remembered pulling Gavroche up beside him onto a cart, though the rest of the details of the journey were lost in a haze of bloodloss and pain.

“I went off and visited my little ones, gave them the money,” Gavroche continued, adopting a fatherly tone.

Bahorel chuckled. “Your little ones?”

“Found the poor wretches wandering around, without a penny, mewling for their mother like lost kittens,” Gavroche said with a shrug. “They’re as good as mine now. But I gave them the money and I said, lads, I’ve taught you well, now your father’s found himself a calling and is off to fight for freedom. You know the streets now and you’d best still be here when I get back.”

Bahorel stared at him. 

Gavroche grinned. “Your company was short one drummer boy.”

***

Enjolras made his way through the hospital, his expression drawn into one of neutrality. He was acutely aware of the suffering around him, of the dead and the dying. His hands, clasped behind his back, where still trembling. He had barely slept five hours in the last four days, and was still unsure of the exact tally of the men under his command he had lost. The images of the battle were burned in the back of his mind, there when he was left unoccupied for a moment or when he closed his eyes.

Yet he could not break. This battle had been a mistake, a foolish, stupid mistake made by those too eager to show off their shiny new army’s prowess and beat the Confederacy into submission, and it had failed. It hadn’t even been a shaky step towards any of the values Enjolras had pledged his life to. 

He was serving under idiots of generals, and a president more wrapped up in the preservation of the country’s landmass that he failed to think of the values that the country was created under. 

But it was for those things that Enjolras fought, for liberty and equality and the brotherhood of all humanity. The war would not be the clear-cut, simple affair that the politicians had hoped, but an ugly thing that would spill blood across the fields of his country.

In that length of time there would be time to bring the president and congress to an understanding, to make them realize that they must that they must strip the southern states of the vile crime against humanity that was slavery, instead of trying to make deals with them.

Enjolras and his friends were now pledged to the army, caught up in this struggle, and he knew that before the war was out there was a high possibility he and the others could be dead.

But if it was the price of true liberty, he would pay his life gladly, and he knew his friends to be of like mind.

All these tumultuous thoughts were driven from his head when he saw Bahorel’s face grinning up from one of the narrow cots. He was sitting up, already looking lively and colorful in comparison to the pale man that Enjolras had glimpsed for a moment the day before. 

He spotted Enjolras, and called out “Lieutenant!”

Enjolras had never been one to obey the letter of the army’s rules and regulations regarding propriety and his rank, and paid them no mind when he threw his arms around Bahorel.


End file.
